


Not A Soldier

by CapriciousKitten (SunflowerPineapple)



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Codependency, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Touch-Starved, Work In Progress, good guy Brock Rumlow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:33:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21578365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunflowerPineapple/pseuds/CapriciousKitten
Summary: Falling in love may not be the most convenient thing to happen when you're trying to recover from years of abuse by an evil organization, but sometimes these things are out of your control.ORBrock saves Bucky, and also Bucky kind of saves him too.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Brock Rumlow
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This fic is a labor of love, inspired by the song "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock stumbles upon someone in the night, and his life changes forever

As Brock walks down the hall from his barracks to investigate the noise, he can’t help asking himself why he isn’t ignoring it. It’s not like anything could get into this place without Pierce knowing about it, and it’s only his job to clean up the messes Pierce asks him to. Still, for once, curiosity has gotten the best of him. As he nears the door the noise is coming from, he stills as he reads the plaque, words becoming legible in the dark at the same time he registers the noise as broken sobbing.

The first time Brock saw Winter. he thought he was one of the few recruits who might be able to give him a run for his money when it came to dominance and cruelty. He quickly changed his mind. He knew something wasn’t right from the first time he looked into Winter’s eyes, but the only time he asked Pierce about he was dismissed so quickly he had whiplash. After that, he figured Winter was likely here for the same reason he was- he didn’t have any other choice.

Brock touches the door, fingers tracing the sign that indicates the room as Winter’s, leaning in to get his ear closer to the door. The sound of sobbing becomes more pronounced, and before he can think about it he reaches for the doorknob which turns with a click.

It’s a true indication of how distraught Winter must be that Brock isn’t attacked the moment he walks in. He’s curled up on his cot, looking small and young, so much smaller than he looks in his typical combat gear. Before he can stop himself, Brock walks in and closes the door behind him, crossing the room in three quick steps. He stands over Winter, who simply looks up at him morosely. “Why are you here?” He asks. They’re the first words Brock has ever heard him speak.

“I heard you,” Brock says tentatively, “what’s wrong?”

Winter cries even harder at that. Through the sobs, he manages, “I’ll never be able to get out of here. They’ll never let me. You’ll never let me, I hate you all, I’ll be trapped here forever!”

Brock’s heart clenches. He sits on the foot of the bed and pulls Winter, alarmingly small and extremely resistant, into his arms. He strokes his long hair back from his face then shifts them both so they’re lying on the cot, face to face. “I’m trapped too,” he says hoarsely, the secret he’s never told anyone else at Hydra bubbling to the surface. “I’m trapped, and I’m too old to stay here anymore.” He pauses, takes a breath, then takes the plunge. “I can get us both out of here,” he says quickly, barely above a whisper, “Pierce trusts me, and I know how to hide us when we’re gone. I’ve been afraid, but you,” he swallows audibly, “you can’t stay here anymore, and I can protect you.”

Because he doesn’t know what Hydra has been doing to keep Winter so dead inside whenever he’s seen him before, but none of the possibilities are good. Because he knows there’s an expiration date on his life if he stays here. But mostly, because from the moment he walked into the room and saw the man broken and vulnerable, he knew he’d do anything to fix it. For reasons he can’t look too closely at right now, he thinks he’d do anything at all for him.

“Let’s go,” he says suddenly. “You can’t stay here anymore,” he adds decisively, “and the middle of the night will be the easiest time to get out.” He tugs Winter to his feet, and he goes along easily. His eyes are wide and a little afraid, but Brock gets the impression the fear isn’t directed at him. “Get your things.”

Winter pauses a moment before he whispers, “I don’t have anything,” which nearly sends Brock into a blind rage. When he pulls Winter to the door and realizes it’s locked from the inside and he has to use his key to get them out, the rage nearly bubbles over, and it’s a testament to how badly he needs to get them both out that he doesn’t kill anyone as they leave.


	2. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They escape, and Brock contemplates his life choices, past, present, and future.

They make their escape almost easily, but Brock isn’t surprised. He knows the facility, along with the inner workings of Hydra, better than almost anyone. He also knows how to cover his tracks. He has a go bag always prepared, because missions can come at any time in his experience. His room is on the way to the exit, so it’s a simple matter of a quick stop there and a short stroll through the labyrinth of halls Brock has been intimately familiar with since he was a teen. Instead of the main doors, he takes Winter out a service entrance where he knows the cameras are down, and that’s it. They’re out.

The moment they are out on the street, Winter freezes. Brock wraps a hand gently around his wrists and tugs him along, making him follow but being careful not to hurt him. “We can’t stay here, we have to move. We have to get somewhere safe.” He has to ignore the abject fear In Winter’s eyes, because he knows if they stay here too long it will be the end for both of them.

Luckily, for some reason Brock never understood, headquarters is in the middle of a huge city. For that reason, he only has to get Winter up ten blocks and over two in order to reach the parking garage where he’s stashed his car. He bought the thing a couple years prior, in cash, registered under a false name Hydra didn’t know about. At the time, he told himself it was just in case the organization was ever compromised. Even then, deep down, he knew it was a lie.

As they walk silently through the city, Brock contemplates how eerie it is that nothing in the world seems to have changed, even though he’s functionally tilted his whole world on its axis. The stars can barely be seen through the thick light pollution of the city, cars drive by from time to time but pay the two of them no mind, dressed in black and sticking to the shadows.

When they reach the car, he directs, “Winter, get in,” trying to gentle his voice as to not startle him. Winter hesitates for only a moment before obeying. 

They drive for hours. Getting a secret apartment out of state had been far more risky than the car, and he only had the courage to do so a few months ago. It helped that he’d lived at his place of work and had spent almost none of the money he’d made while working there, but he’d had to take out money slowly over time, never knowing when Pierce might be watching for a suspicious withdrawal from his account. The previous owner of his place was only too happy to sign the title over to him with no questions when presented with the complete asking price in cash.

Winter falls asleep about an hour in. Brock can’t help stealing looks at him as they drive, drinking in the sight of him even as rage bubbles low inside at the obvious signs of mistreatment he never noticed until now. He looks impossibly young, not much over 20, young enough to be Brock’s son if he’d ever had the time or safety to start a family. His cheekbones are sharp, and his collarbone on one side is visible where his shirt has slid off his shoulder. He’s almost frail, and Brock thinks he must not have been getting enough to eat. He tremors faintly every so often in his sleep, even after Brock turns up the heat in the car. There are dark circles under his eyes, and he knows from their brief moment on the bed they make the blue of his eyes stand out. When Brock thinks about how Winter could have been performing at the level he was, an elite assassin, one of their best, when underneath everything he looks like this, it makes Brock want to burn the whole world to the ground. He knows the chemicals, drugs, and concoctions Hydra has access to, has used some of them himself, but none are meant for long term use.

In spite of all that, Brock is captivated by him. He wants to be able to tell himself he’s altruistically motivated, that he’s only doing this because it’s what’s best for Winter, but he knows it’s only partially true. He wants to reach out and trace Winter’s full, red lips with his fingers. His mind drifts as he drives to that visible collarbone and how he’d like to trace it with his tongue, biting gently. He thinks about how perfect Winter’s small frame would fit in his arms, straddling him, letting Brock hold him close enough that there’s no space between them. 

Brock wishes he were a good enough man to promise he will never do any of that. He wishes he could write it all off as a fantasy, move Winter into the off limits category in his mind, be content with his right hand and if he gets too desperate, find a bar where he can pick up. At the very least, he should give Winter time to recover. Brock has killed a lot of people, done horrific things under Pierce’s orders, and he’s never lost sleep over it because he had no choice. But as he drives, he comes to the realization that there must be a darkness inside him all his own, to know that if Winter is willing he’ll take him, even if a better man would wait until he had recovered. He wants to protect him, care for him, keep him safe first and foremost. But he also wants him viscerally, and maybe it’s because he wants to protect him, maybe it’s because he’s young and innocent and needs protection, needs Brock. No one has ever needed him before. He clings to the thought that he’d never touch Winter without consent, would never hurt him, but he’s not sure how much that matters in the grand scheme of things. If there is a god, he thinks, he’ll probably be sending Brock to hell anyway after the life he’s led. He just hopes he doesn’t drag Winter there with him.


End file.
